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In 1977, a group of radical black feminists called the Combahee River Collective released a statement against “racial, sexual, heterosexual and class oppression.” In this collection, scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor interviews Combahee members. “We didn’t know it, but what we were doing was incubating the next revolution,” says co-founder Demita Frazier.

This classic anthology lays out “an uncompromised definition of feminism.” Through prose, poetry and visual art, contributors such as Audre Lorde explore how race, class, gender and sexuality all shape the oppression of women of color—and how the mainstream women’s and civil rights movements have often ignored this.

Ida B. Wells is best known for her investigative journalism. But Wells, who founded Illinois' largest suffrage club for black women, is also a criminally underrated feminist thinker. Her collected writings feature muckraking reporting and pathbreaking analyses of how white supremacy breeds in a petri dish of racism, misogyny and anxiety about masculinity.